27th May - today dawned bright and sunny so as we left Dornoch behind it looked like our 70 mile drive to the ferry port at Scrabster was going to be an enjoyable journey. And it really was - the roads were almost devoid of any amount of traffic, and for most of the way we had the shimmering sea on one side and gorse clad hills and fields on the other. However, as we got to within 20 miles of the port we realised that we were going to be too early so we pulled over into a lay by overlooking a small Loch to while away half an hour while sipping hot chocolate. We continued our journey passing through the town of Thurso which is the most northerly town on the mainland, and then we didn't have much further to go before we were on the port side with still another hour to wait for the boat.
Once aboard for our 90 minutes crossing to Orkney we sat out on the stern sun deck and enjoyed some warm rays as the Scottish mainland receded into the distance. We then just bobbed along on the mill pond calm sea and as we went we (along with quite a few others) enjoyed our picnic lunch. Towards the end of our journey we passed The Old Man of Hoy which is a sea stack that is very popular with Climbers - apparently it was first climbed in 1966 but Google told us it has since been conquered by children as young as 8 years old. As we passed lots of the ferry passengers flocked to the starboard side of the boat to take photos and as we weren't amongst them I thought we'd miss out on our picture but luckily John's got long arms so he was able to hold our camera aloft and 'snap' it was in the bag😀.
Once we left the boat behind it was an easy onward drive to Kirkwall where we'll be staying on the Orkney Caravan Park for the next 10 nights.
28th May - well our luck is holding with the weather 🌤 🌞 ☀️ but we soon discovered our caravan had got a 'little' problem 😲. We seemed to have an airlock in the water system that was making the water spit and splutter and it was also preventing the water pump from switching off. John tried every which way to sort it but to no avail, and it seems there are no mobile Mr Fixers on the island so we look like having to make do with switching the pump on and off every time we want to turn the tap on!
But Hey Ho, that's life and we decided not to let it bother us - we'll just look for someone to sort it when we get back onto the mainland in 3 weeks time. So with all that hassle we had a bit of a late start but as our plan was to explore Kirkwall today (which is less than 5 minutes away) it didn't matter. We walked from the site down towards the harbour and almost the first thing we saw was 2 huge cruise ships! Apparently they visit most days but today with 2 of them docked there were nearly 6000 extra visitors so as you would imagine the streets were quite busy.
Initially we avoided them and walked out of Kirkwall and around The Bay of Weyland. However, hunger eventually drove us back and after a walk through the eclectic shopping streets we found Judith Glue's shop/cafe that claimed to sell 'real food'. As we entered we thought we might be out of luck because every table was occupied but as we were about to leave a couple moved so we quickly jumped in their grave and we were very glad we did. We enjoyed a delicious quiche salad 🥗 😋 washed down with an Orkney 🍺. The shop part of the establishment sold all kinds of food, spirits, knitwear and loads of gifts but mostly for loads of money 💰 so we didn't indulge and instead we went across the road to admire the now much quieter St Magnus Cathedral.
The red sandstone Cathedral is nearly 900 years old with a spire that reaches 160 feet tall and it's the UKs most northerly Cathedral known as The Light of North. The inside was as beautiful as the outside and featured loads of arches and tall stone pillars some of which are leaning. I always find Cathedrals quite amazing - how on earth did they manage to build such magnificently complicated structures without today's technology!
29th May - Oh dear more rain, however the weatherman said it would stop by lunch time so we held him to that 😀 and set of to visit the ancient Ring of Brodgar. It's said to be one of the finest stone circles anywhere and it's massive in size. Apparently it measures 125 megalithic yards in diameter - and I now know (thanks to Google) that a megalithic yard is an ancient unit equal to about 2.72 feet and hypothetically it was used on many ancient sites such as Stone Henge and other stone circles. Of the original 60 stones only 27 remain varying in height between 6 and 15 feet and they were laid out in a perfect circle surrounded by a wide deep ditch that is estimated to have 165,979 cubic feet of stone shifted in it's making. There are 2 entrance causeway on the North and south sides, and as you would imagine, the whole structure has connections with astrological alignments, and the equinox solstices. You can only walk around the outer perimeter of the circle because the inner domain is an RSPB protected area and this rule obviously protects the ancient stones as well.
One of the legends connected to the stones tells how a band of fearsome giants gathered together on the site one night and began to dance to the sound of a fiddle 🎻. They forgot to watch for the sun rising and as the first rays crept over the horizon they were instantly turned to stone!
While we were in the area we also strolled about a mile along a grassy path to view the Standing Stones of Stenness. Originally this was a circle of 12 stones but now only 4 are left. This in part might have been due to a local farmer who in 1814 started to pull the stones down because he was fed up of having to plough around them. He also destroyed the Odin stone which had a circular hole and tradition had it that couples who held hands through the hole would be bound in marriage. The locals were so outraged by his actions they tried to burn 🔥 his house down twice!
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| Is somebody hiding? |
Our walk then took us on to the remains of a village which lies on the shores of Loch Harray. The site was discovered by archaeologists in 1984 and the houses there were similar in structure to the much older ones at Skara Brae which was the next place we were going to visit.
Once we'd driven the 5 miles mostly along the Loch side we reached Skara Brae, paid our admission free and then walked along a time line that took us 5000 years into the past. Skara Brae is a Neolithic village that was occupied for about 600 years but then became buried by sand dunes. It stayed under the sand until 1850 when a a severe storm and high tide revealed it in near original condition. Today 7 houses and a work shop, along with a maze of pathways can be viewed from a walkway above - it really was quite amazing to see something so old in such a preserved state. From there we wandered on to Skaill House which has been in the care of the 12 Lairds of Skail for over 400 years. Unsurprisingly its said to be haunted - we saw lots of treasures that had been collected over many years but thankfully no ghosts.
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| The Living Quarters at Skara Brae |
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| The Workshop |
Then just as we were leaving the moody skies released an absolute deluge and we got soaked as we ran to the car but 5 mins later the sun 🌞 won the battle so we quickly dried in the warm rays.
30th May - a blustery day with cloudy skies and only brief peeks of 🌞. Today we decided to walk from the campsite to Scapa Bay which is a large area of water almost surrounded and sheltered by Orkney mainland and the South Isles.
The waters are steeped in wartime history going back as far as 1812 and also from both World Wars but one event that took my interest was 'The Grand Scuttle' where huge numbers of German warships were scuttled on the command of Von Reuter. It seems that under the terms of the Armistice Germany agreed to surrender the majority of her Navy bur rather than let that happen the German Navy immediately made plans to scuttle the fleet. The Armistice was due to end on 21st June but was extended to 23rd and agreed by the German Government but Von Reuter wasn't informed so at 10.30 on 21st June 1919 he ordered the signal 'Paragraph Eleven' which was the order to scuttle. A huge number of ships sank to the sea bed (over 70) with a huge loss of life. At first it was decided that the ships should be left there to rot but it wasn't long before other ships started to run aground on the hulks so by 1922 salvage operations began. Over the years more most of the ships were salvaged for their valuable metal but today 7 still lie in the murky depths.
While we were in Scapa Bay we paused for a drink and learned a little about HMS Royal Oak who sank there in 1939. It seems a German U-boat had managed to seek into the bay from the east side and it's torpedoes caused the ship to sink with the loss of 835 lives - but a bit more about that tomorrow!
We left the Bay behind and then followed a track past Skapa pier along The Burn of Widford which was festooned with thousands (if not millions) of wild irises, butter cups and pretty pink ladies smock. Then as we neared the end of the track we needed to walk adjacent to a field full of young black cows/ bulls who numbered about 50. They were very inquisitive and started to run along side us in their very long field. Every now and again they would charge towards us and peer in what I thought was an aggressive manner so we were very glad there was a fence between us and them!😱 After our Coast to coast walk (Scapa Bay to Inganess) we sat on Inganess Beach ⛱️ where we had lunch before returning via a quite road to Kirkwall.
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| The Fierce Cows |
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| Inganess Bay |
May 31st - the theme here seems to be for blustery days with some bright spells and today was no different 😀. Today was our day to explore the South of Orkney Mainland so to do that we crossed over to East Mainland and headed south towards South Ronaldsay crossing over the 4 Churchill Barriers as we went.
The Churchill Barriers came to be constructed following the sinking of HMS Royal Oak with the aim of permanently blocking the Eastern entrance to Scapa Flow because that was were a large proportion of the English naval fleet was based. Approval for the project was gained in 1940 and at that time additional block ships were sunk to form a base. Balfour Beatty were the contractors and 1700 men were involved in the work and this number included Italian prisoners of war. It took till 1944 for all 4 barriers to be completed and this meant that submarines could no longer enter Scapa Bay from the east.
The first barrier crosses from the Mainland at Holm to Lamb Holm and this is where the beautiful Italian Chapel can be found. It is constructed from 2 army Nissen Huts that were gifted to the Italian POWs when they were brought to Orkney from camps in North Africa. The artwork inside the building was done by Domenico Chiocchetti, it seems he used a small prayer card that his mother had given him and which he had carried with him at all times. This was his inspiration for the Madonna and Child above the alter and in the decoration of the Chapel he was assisted by his fellow prisoners - a cement worker, a blacksmith and an electrician to name but a few. Other than the paint for the walls everything else inside was salvaged from the sunken block ships around the island and this included the tiles for the floor which were chipped from the bathrooms on the ships. The one thing they had in abundance was concrete and this was used to make the font and the statue of George and the Dragon which sits at the entrance to the site.
After admiring the Chapel we proceeded over the second barrier to the small island of Glimps Holm and as we crossed we could see hulks of sunken vessels the sides of which are now used to store lobster pots. The next barrier crossed over to Burray and then the last one to South Ronaldsay and once on that island we drove down to the most southerly point of Berwick for a walk along part of the coastal path which offered stunning views of very craggy coastal cliffs.
However, the path was quite narrow and guarded on the landward side by barbed wire which at times resulted in us walking very close to the edge 😳. Therefore to admire the many pretty wild flowers which included sea thrift, red campion, buttercups and birds foot trefoil to name but a few, along with the ever-changing strata in the rocks many stops were required along the way so we didn't get quite as far as we thought we might. To get back to the car we needed to retrace out steps and then it was a quick return to Holm for lunch in a cafe that overlooked Scapa Flow.
Once that was sorted we crossed the barriers again and headed for Hoxa Head which lies on the South entrance to Scapa Flow. Our plan here was to do a circular walk around the Head but signs on the landward side warned that there were cows 🐄 and bulls in the fields that may be aggressive and after yesterday's encounter of the bovine kind we decided we wouldn't risk it. Instead we did another there and back up to the Head on the seaward side and quickly came across the fortifications that had protected Scapa in both World Wars. Guns were first mounted there in 1915 but then in 1939 the battery was upgraded and rebuilt with larger more powerful guns, watchtowers with searchlights and accommodations for the soldiers. In the end the Hoxa guns never saw action - just knowing they were there must have been enough of a deterrent.
The views along the way were magnificent as we walked in both directions but as we neared the end of our walk we were charmed by seeing several larks fluttering furiously as thy ascended to eventually vanish from sight. Additionally we were amused by 2 Redshanks who screamed and flapped as they flew quite close to us - we think they must have had a nest close by and they were trying to scare us away!
Well, that's the first 5 days on Orkney, the next 5 will be coming soon xxx
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